VII THE PASSER-BY

AS I was seated in the evening before the door of the house, a young man passed by. He looked at me, I turned away my head. He spoke to me but I did not answer.

He wished to approach me. I took a sickle from the wall and I would have cut open his cheek if he had advanced another step.

Then, drawing back a little, he began to smile and breathed in his hand toward me, saying: “Receive the kiss.” And I cried! And I wept! So much so that my mother hastened to me.

Alarmed, believing that I had been stung as though by a scorpion, I wept: “He embraced me.” My mother also embraced me and carried me away in her arms.